dreaming in monochrome
by Erzazel
Summary: In the weight and expectation of revenge, Eunwol (Shade) dreams. Eunwol joins Lucid -the newest Commander of the Black Mage- told from the perspective of everybody except him. (all the heroes will feature.)
1. Chapter 1

"There have been reports of a new Commander of the Black Mage on the scene," is what Colette opens with.

Phantom laughs, and leans on his cane with an elegant grace, standing in the doorway of the Intelligence Deck. It's a bright, clear morning, the sun casting weak rays of light across the polished wooden floors. The front door has been left open, and a sliver of cloud drifts into the room and hovers uncertainly over the ground as the intelligence team continue to tap furiously away at their keyboards, eyes focused, expressions stoic.

"Good morning to you too, Colette, Christiane," he retorts playfully. "I had a great night's sleep, thank you for asking. We're flying close to the clouds, and yet air turbulence remains ever so elusive. Renault truly is an excellent captain."

"Yes, yes," Christiane openly rolls her eyes. "Manners. Well, you didn't hire us for them, so we'd thought we'd get straight to the point. That is, there's a new Commander on the scene, and he's intent on making his name known, no matter the cost." She pauses in her typing for a moment and looks up at Phantom, eyes furrowed, worry etched in every line of her face.

"So, what has the newest moth to the Black Mage's flame done?"

"He's utterly destroyed Rein, for starters." Colette chimes in, turning her laptop around so Phantom can see the screen.

It is absolute devastation.

 _houses clawed apart as though by some vengeful spirit, penguin corpses scattered across the town, eyes clouded in death- and in the very center, a huge gouge in the ice that Maha had been encased in, though the thick curse-strength ice had managed to barely protect the physical form of the polearm itself-_

and carved into the ice, a symbol- a butterfly, perched on the head of a amethyst eyed fox.

Christanne turns around her own laptop.

 _A blurry image of a figure clad in black, twirling past the camera, a wickedly sharp clawed knuckle attached to his right hand. He's stabbing a penguin through the torso, multicolored spirits twisting around him, angry, mad. And somewhat discordantly, a glowing purple butterfly mask adorns his face, obscuring his features._

"We've been investigating, and the only human inhabitant of Rein- Lilin, was last seen on the island, just before the attack occurred. It is highly possible that she's been kidnapped by the culprit."

Violet eyes sharpen, and Phantom's grip on his cane tightens almost imperceptibly. He smiles, and if in the dim sunlight it seems a little forced, nobody comments on it.

"A violet eyed fox...do you know of anyone that uses that symbol?"

"I'll look," Christanne answers, nodding her head slowly, wearily. "But I don't think there's anyone. I've never heard of this man before."

"He's a complete unknown."

* * *

Welcome! Eunwol/Shade's storyline is so amazingly sad, and I just want him to be happy. So naturally, I'm going to write this angsty piece of shit about Eunwol/Shade joining Lucid (the newest Commander of the Black Mage, recently came out in KMS) and screwing everyone over! Because why not.


	2. Chapter 2

"He's not a bad person," says the fox-girl.

She's a pale wisp of a thing- small and pink and delicate. The fox-girl is small enough to perch on the window-sill, her legs dangling over the edge, bent to accommodate the harsh edges of the grey stone wall.

On a fainting-couch facing the window (where she woke up) Lilin pulls herself up. Her eyes narrow and she sweeps the rest of the room they are both in, but she can't see anything else. It is pitch light from the only window in this place- white and wan and weak- barely reaches past the window-sill.

Lilin weighs her options. Talking with her fellow...captive? Would be more productive than getting up and trying to parse out the layout of the rest of the room right now.

"How did you know I was pretending to sleep?" She decides to start with.

The fox girl taps her eyes, and then her nose. Her fluffy pink ears flatten, and she looks away.

"You're just like him, another ear-less, tail-less one. Another human. Shouldn't the two of you be friends? Why are you here? I don't understand," she mutters in plainly visible frustration. Then she puts her face in her hands, but her amber eyes- luminescent in this lighting- make how she's peering through her fingers at Lilin obvious.

Lilin has never seen anybody quite like her too, but then again, what does _she_ know? She's just a _sheltered_ , _naive_ , _foolish_ girl.

She lets out a sigh and pulls herself together, draws the shattered ice of her pride together and crosses her hands primly in her lap. With a slight shake of the head, she banishes the faint memory of Nineheart's words to her. She will need her wits about her if she wants to escape this...

A firework bursts into brilliantly colourful sparks, and a burst of white light washes over the room. The floor glows back in response, and she sees that it is not drab grey stone like she imagined, but purple hued marble.

Amethysts adorn the ground, set into the stone with a careful precision and artfully arranged in the shape of a fox with piercing violet eyes and a violently pink butterfly settled on the tip of it's ear. There are two separate beds, held up by a masterwork of intricately laced bronze.

The rest of the room is similarly luxurious, with rich velvet curtains dotted with lights masquerading as stars and an antique music box resting between the beds, crafted out of what looks like solid gold.

...prison cell?

The fox-girl's expression softens.

"The room is nice. But this isn't the only reason why I think he's not a bad person."

Lilin looks away, remembering-

(run away _run away_ lilin he's after you he's after maha we'll hold him off run run run _ru_ -)

And Lilin is suddenly furious. She leaps to her feet and makes to stomp towards the girl, ice in her cerulean eyes and fury in her broken heart, and she wants to scream _did you know what he did to my family-_

The floor glows a sickly pink.

The fox girl turns away.

And Lilin sees- no, she dreams a few snatches of a memory long since past.

* * *

((Aran on her knees, leaning heavily on Maha. Her face is bruised with dirt, wounds dripping blood, clothes torn and tattered. A grin.

"You know they'd take you apart if they heard you say that. Oh look, another round of monsters coming."

A small reassuring smile, directed towards a comrade. Turning to face the black cloaked monsters, knuckles clenched, hair scattering in the hot, caustic wind.

The voice of the man who destroyed Rein:

"Here, I'll take care of this."))

((A quaint little town, filled with pointy-eared fox people. Viridian grass, sunlight yellow flowers, small houses styled after the inhabitants. The pink fox-girl, frowning in concentration, her brows cutely furrowed.

"Besides, I found him, so I get to name him. Now...you're all dark and mysterious, so I'm gonna call you E-"))

* * *

Lilin leaps back onto the couch, eyes wide.

"The floor-" she starts, rage temporarily forgotten.

"The floor is enchanted to show us visions," the girl volunteers, looking back out the window. Her expression is shielded from Lilin's view, but her tail and ears twitch with crackling anxiety.

"But I've never met him before he took me from my village. I've never given him a name. I don't know why we're here, or if anything he's been showing us is real."

"Maybe they aren't," Lilin spits out, anger slowly rising in her chest again. "Maybe they're all fake, and everything's just some sick twisted dream of his. I won't fall for his tricks. I won't!"

Her anger reverberates off the walls, echoes off the stone and is eventually swallowed up by the darkness. The fox girl watches Lilin shout.

Then the girl lifts her chin up and looks Lilin straight in the eye.

"But what if it's not?" She demands, "What if they're all real, and we just forgot?"

* * *

AN:

'sup people i'm back with more angst for all of you

EDIT: linebreaks were eaten by the white void, updated chapter to add them back in

All flashbacks are from Eunwol's storyline.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucid weaves.

Butterflies and silver silk threads, wishes and dreams. Lucid stands, pulls the threads from her harp, and weaves.

Mends tapestries of thought that were never torn, cross-stitching memories that were never meant to be woven together, cutting and tucking the excess neatly into the folds of her sleeve. She's done it before, an ice age ago- cut her own life out from the eyes of others like snipping away frayed cloth. She's done it before, and she **can** (will) _must_ do it again.

Eunwol, is it? A kindred soul. One that should stand by her side, where all forgotten things are meant to be.

Except this time, she is making them forget.

It's _so_ easy, too- _so_ simple, to make Phantom's cane reach just a foot longer to take out an enemy that would otherwise have been killed by Eunwol-dearest, add an extra arrow to Mercedes's volley, increase the adrenaline pumping through Aran's veins so that she took out all the monsters in the Temple of Abaraxas on her own, like she thinks she did a lifetime ago in the Temple of Time.

So easy to wipe a few of Freud's words to his fellow Heroes, so that the sixth is never mentioned. So easy to mesh together the memories that Aran had of training into one long unremarkable blur, so that she never notices that a certain dark-clothed pirate with long hair and melancholy eyes is missing. So easy to swap Eunwol's face with that of an unremarkable grunt in that Black Heaven debacle, so that nobody remembers his contributions there.

So easy. Just like it was for her.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Then, he would know, wouldn't he? He would come. Join me, and together, we'll sear our presence into their minds, make them remember our name. They will never forget, never again.

(mercedes, mercedes, i have a present for you)

It's all for her own sake, see? The Black Mage wants to destroy Maple World, rip the Erdas from it's rightful place and create his own. But just as The Black Mage cannot help being ambitious, she cannot help her own sentimentality. Once upon a time, a little elf girl with a hesitant, burgeoning hope stood in front of her queen and held out a music box, and she cannot forget her own hopes and dreams even as they lie in shimmering roseate dust at her feet.

If the Black Mage didn't want a sentimental Commander, then he shouldn't have granted this power to a being of dreams.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

She needs an ally, and Eunwol is just perfect.

 _ **Rip.**_

* * *

An outstretched hand, to a tired, aching soul.

"There, there. They've gone and _forgotten_ you again, haven't they? Those detestable, false heroes. They told you they would fix this. They told you that you belonged. They told you that they would _remember_."

"But it's alright, Eunwol-dearest. I remember you. I always will remember, because I'm not of this world, just like you."

"Accept my power, become my partner."

"Together, the world will know our name."

A hesitation. Violet eyes rising to meet intent rose eyes.

(A pointed sneer, from one he called a friend. "Who are you, again?")

The taking of a hand.

* * *

AN:

the chapter where we see why eunwol resorted to joining lucid to begin with.

desperation and being forgotten for the 3rd(4th?) time.

tbh this is the only scenario where i can see eunwol joining lucid in a permanent fashion. lucid screws with everybody's memories like we know she's capable of doing, making everybody forget eunwol even without eunwol crossing dimensions. this sends eunwol into a terrible depression: he thought he had his curse all figured out, but clearly he didn't, and now everybody has forgotten him again, and maybe it's because he's just not important enough to them? is he that unimportant (whydoievenexist) and it all goes downhill from here.

at his lowest point, lucid gives him an offer.

"Join me, and I'll make sure everybody will know your name again."

and then this horrible fanfic happens. yay


	4. Chapter 4

**WARNING:**

Major spoilers for Lacheln questline. I strongly recommend watching "Dream City Lacheln Quest [ MapleStoryQuest ]" by Shiang009 on youtube if you haven't gotten to lvl 220 and done the Lacheln questline, otherwise you're going to be pretty confused. With that being said, have fun!

* * *

Gasmask teeters on the edge of the Arcane River, dream-bright fairy-lights illuminating his dull brass mask. He is confident, here- in this town drained of music, where weakness makes his arms shake beneath his cloak and eyes droop. The final sleep is coming for him, and he knows it. When Lacheln breaks and Lucid awakens from her dream, he will cease to exist.

He toes the edge, wary, but not of it's waters. He knows he is neither human nor Erdas, neither real nor unreal, no matter what the Adventurer says. A realistic illusion, a heat haze nightmare. The water cannot disintegrate what does not exist. Ergo, those shimmering waters cannot destroy him.

He trains his eyes on the violet-eyed traitor, and inches closer to the edge.

"You disgust me," he whispers.

The traitor cocks his head, eyes serious, smile unsettling. There is something stretched about that smile, Gasmask thinks. Something pulled too thin, a clumsy paper mâché mask made by a man too eager to forget.

He closes his weary eyes, and remembers.

Before the Adventurer came, there used to be more of the Enlightened. There were at least a few dozen of them, and they all stumbled into the Hideout with fear-filled eyes that gradually shifted into genuine warmth. Together, they had built a ragged, filthy but safe home, safe from the Cleaners. Together, they had had real happiness in a place full of manufactured grins and artfully imitated giggles. He and the Old Man hadn't always been alone.

And then a melancholy stranger with long, dark hair had shown up on the streets of Lacheln. He had to be an Enlightened, Gasmask could tell. Perhaps a particularly dull one.

Although he still drifted through the pathways with a frantic kind of joy that all of the Unenlightened had, sightseeing with a fevered look in his eyes, there was a bone deep tiredness that dragged at his every movement, made him slouch, made his feet stumble. This man was not truly happy, Gasmask had thought. He wasn't happy when he was supposed to be.

He must have taken off his mask, and it must have been pure, dumb luck that he hadn't been caught by the Cleaners yet.

The man must have been falling out of the dream, the Gasmask knew, and so, he grabbed the man and ran. Taken him home to the Hideout. Shown him to the Old Man, _look, here's another one-_

-and then the man had straightened up. Spirits tinged sickly pink twisted angrily around his knuckles, raged through their little home, a overwhelming miasma of negative energy choking, blurring their sight-

"Ah, so this is where Lucid's enemies have been hiding." The man raised his foot as though to stalk towards them, but ended up padding gently forward. A strange mix of hesitation and confidence. He couched his voice in sympathy, and continued.

"I'm sorry, but I can't have you compromise her happiness. I can't have you destroy my only chance left."

* * *

And then-

-everything-

-fell-

-apart.

(Gasmask has no idea how he survived that attack. When he had awoken, he had been bruised but not broken, damaged, but not beyond repair. The same couldn't be said of his friends. The same couldn't be said about his home.)

(allmyfault,allmyfault,whydiditrusthim,howcouldihavejustletthishappen,neveragain,neveragain)

(The Old Man had been alive, but barely. His memory had never been the same. He couldn't quite remember the violet-eyed traitor, even if the gaping gash across the back of his head clearly did.)

But Gasmask would remember. Gasmask would always remember.

(and hate.)

He reigns in his emotions, lets them lurk under the surface, ready to be called out. He will use this emotion, he thinks to himself. He will use this rage. He faces the traitor, and speaks.

"Lacheln is going to be destroyed. I've sent the Adventurer on their way. They're immune to Lucid's powers, and they will stop her for good. You hear that? Your master's going down."

The traitor doesn't say anything. The months since Gasmask last saw the man have not been kind. There are bags beneath his traitorous purple eyes, and his skin must have turned paler and paler by day, to be this unhealthy pallor. He is the sharp kind of handsome, now, when once a child might have looked at him and called him kind. Lucid might have brought him happiness, but no dream lasts forever.

Gasmask would know.

"When Lucid dies," and he can't stop talking now, not when he might never get another chance to, "I'll die too."

Disgust turns his gut. "Scum like you- you're selfish, disgusting. Have you ever bothered to think beyond your own happiness? I'm nothing like you."

The traitor suddenly laughs, unhinged, uncontrolled. He turns to face Gasmask fully, hair flaring with the force of his movement, and the paper mask has torn- there is nothing to him but a maniac despair. The mad traitor giggles, and then he bends over and starts laughing hysterically.

"I-" he gasps out, between giggles, "I gave up _everything_!"

And suddenly, he quietens.

"For him. For them," the traitor whispers, his voice like broken glass to sweep away.

* * *

"For Lilin," says Aran. She is grim now, resolute and strong. She holds the pen like a weapon, circling the area beyond Chew Chew Island where Phantom's information gathering had pointed to Lilin's location.

Mercedes puts a comforting hand on her fur-caped shoulder and nods. Evan strokes Mir's neck and does the same. Luminous inclines his head grimly, and then scribbles down more details to hash out with Evan later, because they are the only mages around now, and they need to use all that intelligence to the utmost. Phantom vanishes in a brilliant flare of cards, heading back to the Lumiere to make arrangements.

"For them," Aran repeats, blue eyes like ice chips in the shade.

* * *

AN:

woah, this is the longest chapter yet!

guys, i know it's asking a lot (as other maplestory fics can attest to) but leave a review? can't gauge my progress with character descriptions and other writing stuff from story statistics

thank you. :)


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